TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
George Shultz with First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Photo: Hoover Institution

TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
George Shultz with...

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TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
A passionate advocate for nuclear disarmament, George Shultz meets with President Obama.

Photo: Hoover Institution

TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
A passionate advocate...

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TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
Secretary of State George Shultz (left) meets with the new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985.

Photo: Reagan Library

TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
Secretary of State...

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TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
Secretary of State George Shultz (left), President Reagan (center) and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger.

Photo: Reagan Library

TURMOIL & TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS
Secretary of State...

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Secretary of State George Shultz, center, walks with President Reagan and Vice President George Bush on his arrival on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 1985 at the White House in Washington after two days of arms talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma)

Turmoil & Triumph:The George Shultz Years: Documentary. Produced, written and directed by David deVries. Part 1, "A Call to Service," 10 p.m. Mon. Part 2, "To Start the World Again," 10 p.m. July 19. Part 3, "Swords to Ploughshares," 10 p.m. July 26 on KQED.

At 89, George P. Shultz has survived crises around the world, personally felt the loss of 241 Marines in a barracks bombing in Beirut and has seen the White House shaken by scandal during his service to President Richard M. Nixon and President Ronald Reagan. He also survives "Turmoil & Triumph: The George Shultz Years," a three-part hagiography airing over the next three Mondays on PBS.

Writer-director-producer David deVries has pulled off a rather neat trick in his prosaically assembled film: Usually, when a documentary includes only those with nice things to say about the subject, we stop believing somewhere along the line, and the subject himself ends up diminished in the process.

In this case, Shultz is so smart, so credible and offers such a valuable perspective on world and American political history over the past several decades that even the use of rather hokey re-enactments of some events and hiring comic Rich Little to replicate the voice of Ronald Reagan can be overlooked.

Only once in "Turmoil's" three hours will you hear someone disagree with Shultz, and that comes in the final part during a discussion of whether Reagan knew that Lt. Col. Oliver North and others were arranging arms sales to Iran and using the profits to support the Contra cause in Nicaragua. Shultz believes Reagan didn't know; University of Southern California historian Richard Reeves contends that Reagan did know but that Shultz was left out of the loop because "he was too smart" and would have vehemently opposed the scheme.

And for all that unchallenged praise, you will come away from this compelling film believing former Assistant Secretary of State Charles Hill when he says that Shultz was "among the greatest, if not the greatest, secretaries of state in history."

You will also understand that, whether you agree with him on issues such as free trade (which is covered in the film) and the merits of the Iraq war (which isn't), George Shultz is an honorable and thoughtful man, a master strategist and, above all, a government servant who had a vision beyond self-aggrandizement.

The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy speaks of Shultz as standing out from the crowd in Washington because he seemed "beyond ambition."

Shultz himself says, twice in the film, "You always start with ideas. And if you don't start with ideas, you'll get lost."

Starting with ideas

That credo is borne out time and again throughout "Turmoil." DeVries zips through Shultz's early years, his academic career at MIT and the University of Chicago, and his service as secretaries of labor and the Treasury under Nixon. His years as president of Bechtel Corp. are only briefly mentioned.

In 1982, he replaced Gen. Alexander Haig as secretary of state and hit the ground not only running but also understanding how to work with both Reagan and the powerful first lady, Nancy Reagan. Looking back, Rice says Shultz's "genius" was "to let Ronald Reagan be Ronald Reagan."

This fact becomes clear during the 1986 Reykjavik summit with Gorbachev, which took place after Reagan had announced plans for a space-based Strategic Defense Initiative, quickly dubbed Star Wars by the press. Shultz and Reagan hoped to use SDI as "bait" to leverage disarmament by the Soviets, but were surprised when Gorbachev threw even more concessions on the table, under the condition that the United States agree to test SDI only in the laboratory and never in space.

Reagan wouldn't budge. Shultz might have given in on SDI testing, particularly since the feasibility of the system was being called into question, but once he understood the solidity of Reagan's commitment to the plan, he backed him all the way.

Yet that isn't to say that Shultz was any kind of a lapdog for any of the leaders he served. Over the objections of other Cabinet officials, such as then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, for example, Shultz urged Reagan to begin talking to the Soviets about disarmament and other issues. Weinberger and others couldn't let go of Cold War thinking, but Shultz distinctly saw the potential of communication for the United States. The conversations started with the old-style Russian bureaucrats, like Leonid Brezhnev, but became more fruitful once Gorbachev took office.

Shultz also "lectured" the new Soviet leader on his country's own economic future. As long as Russia remained a closed society, Shultz argued, it would be left out of the new world economic order created by the Information Age.

Test of principles

Shultz's principles were most significantly tested when the Iran-Contra scandal blew up. Initially, Reagan maintained that the United States wasn't selling arms to Iran under the table. Later, before a national TV audience, he was forced to recant and apologize. On CBS' "Face the Nation," Shultz said that if it were up to him, the U.S. arms sales to Iran would stop. Reporter Lesley Stahl asked him if he spoke for the administration.

"No," he said tersely.

It was a stunning and nakedly revealing answer from a secretary of state otherwise known to be especially close to his commander in chief.

Shultz subsequently submitted his resignation to Reagan, who refused to accept it.

The moment ripples with drama. We might want to hear from Shultz himself on how he was not only able to maintain and restore his relationship with Reagan, but, indeed, to go on serving with distinction. But in fact, we already know: That old Princeton motto, "In service to the nation," was the vision Shultz maintained above any personal concerns.